Kenan Doğulu

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Kenan Doğulu
Kenan Doğulu Turkish singer.
Background information
Origin	Turkey
Genre(s)	pop
Years active	1993–Present
Website	http://www.kenandogulu.com.tr/

Kenan Doğulu (born on May 31, 1974 in İstanbul) is one of the most popular and influential musicians in the last ten years of the Turkish pop music industry. In the summer of 2006, Doğulu released his hit album Festival and his number one single, Çakkıdı, which became one of the top hit songs of 2006^[1]. He is also planing to release a "best of" album, which will include the most popular songs from his previous albums. In December 2006, Turkish broadcaster TRT unveiled him as the country's representative for the next Eurovision Song Contest, due to take place in Helsinki in May 2007.

1 Early Years
2 Rise
3 Rivals
4 Group members
5 Discography:
6 References
7 External links
8 See also

[edit] Early Years

At the early age of five, he enrolled into the piano class of the School of Music with the highest scores. Having completed six years of education in the piano class, he started flute classes from Erkan Alpay, his instructor, and continued with guitar classes from Erdem Sökmen with the establishment of the class. In the mean time he continued his education in drama and rhytmic instruments, and he carried on singing as a soloist in the children's chorus. Later, he successfully graduated from Kültür Koleji and completed the Communications certificate program at Hesser College, New Hampshire, USA.

[edit] Rise

The first album of the artist, Yaparım Bilirsin was released in August 1993. 93 concerts held that year was a considerable achievement in Turkey. His second album Sımsıkı Sıkı Sıkı was released in December 1994 and achieved an unbelievable success with 175 live performances of the singer that year. The album Kenan Doğulu 3 which was launched in the music shops in August 1996 achieved great appreciation of his fans.

Decennial March, a symbol of the Republic of Turkey, was arranged and presented by Kenan Doğulu to contemporary Turkey and Turkish people on October 29, 1997, the Republic Day. The maxi single Kenan Doğulu 3.5 including the mentioned arrangement of the Decennial March was released in 1997. He has contributed to a great extent in making the Republic March put on the agenda, become popular and to be embedded in children's and youth's minds again. Within the celebration programmes of 75th annivesary of the Republic of Turkey in 1998, he also successfully accomplished a Republic Road Show starting in Bursa, followed by Antalya, İstanbul, Ankara, İskenderun, Samsun, Selçuk and ended in İzmir.

In 1999, inspired by the great attention of the Turkish people on the rearrangement of the Decennial March, the artist released a new album with the rearrangement of the Youth March in the memory of Atatürk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. He believes these works play an important role in conveying the spirit of nationalism to younger generations. The new album Ben Senin Herşeyinim was released the same year. Keeping silent for two years, he fulfilled the expectations of his fans with his album Ex Aşkım which became a hit in 2001. In 2002 Kenan Doğulu 5.5, the unplugged version of Ex Aşkım was released and it reached mass audiences gaining as much appreciation as Ex Aşkım. He addressed his fans again in 2003 with a brand new album Demedi Deme. His latest album, Festival, was released in 2006. On the album, he has a collaboration with famous Turkish singer, Sezen Aksu. He will represent Turkey in 2007 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Shake it up shekerim" .

[edit] Rivals

Kenan Doğulu refuses to be compared with other popular musicians of his time, such as Tarkan, Serdar Ortac & Mustafa Sandal but his fans think that Kenan has a different style than others because he has worked on music professionally since his childhood. Kenan Doğulu once said in one of his TV appearances that he supports Tarkan on his way to become a world-wide pop star but went on to say that Tarkan can't play guitar as well as he can.

[edit] Group members

Kenan Doğulu (Lead Vocal)
Tahsin Endersoy (Electronic Guitar)
Hami Barutçu (Bass Guitar)
Tarik Sezer (Keyboards)
Ozan Dogulu (Keyboards)
Murat Yeter (Drums)
Aydin Karabulut (Percussion)
Murat Yeter (Back Vocal, Guitar)

[edit] Discography:

Year	Title
1993	Yaparım Bilirsin	(You Know I'll Do It)
1994	Sımsıkı Sıkı Sıkı	(Tight, Very Tight)
1995	Kenan Doğulu 3	(Kenan Doğulu 3)
1996	Kenan Doğulu 3.5	(Kenan Doğulu 3.5)
1999	Gençlik Marşı	(March of Youth)
2000	Ben Senin Her Şeyinim	(I am Your Everything)
2001	Ex-Aşkım	(My Ex-Lover)
2002	Kenan Doğulu 5.5	(Kenan Doğulu 5.5)
2003	Demedi Deme	(Don't Tell Me I Didn't Tell You) Sales: 300.000
2004	Kenan Doğulu 6.5	(Kenan Doğulu 6.5) Sales: 45.000
2006	Festival	(Festival) Sales: 265.000